I am looking for some advice from people who have done this themselves. I am looking at ways to reduce our mortgage payments because they are quite high. We have been living here and paying off our mortgage aggressively for the last 8 yrs but now have started looking into changing the amortization on our mortgage (currently 12 yrs left and we could move this to 20 or 30 yrs). A 30 yr amortization would decrease our payments in half. We don't need them to be that low as we are managing with the high payment but this would allow more flexibility for us as I go on mat leave. We would pay more than the required payment as we have been doing. Anyone ever done this? What are the negatives aside from the obvious: have a mortgage longer and as a result pay more in interest? My mom mentioned something about the first yrs on a mortgage have higher interest payments but I am not sure if this would be the case as this is just a renewal. I know you are not mortgage brokers...just seeing if anyone has had this experience. We are young (35 yrs old) so we are not near retirement or anything but have 3 young kids and live in Toronto. All our expenses are essentially fixed and we don't live an extravagant lifestyle (just one car, basic cell, no home phone). We are also looking into cutting some expenses but we can really only cut our basic cable which isn't a huge savings over the long term.